2014-2015 Catalog

HIST 10101-10102. Introduction to African Civilization I-II.

Completion of the general education requirement in social sciences recommended. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. African Civilization introduces students to African history and cultures in a two-quarter sequence.

HIST 10800-10900. Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia I-II.

This sequence introduces core themes in the formation of culture and society in South Asia from the early modern period until the present. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. These courses must be taken in sequence.

HIST 12700-12800. Music in Western Civilization I-II.

Prior music course or ability to read music not required. Students must confirm enrollment by attending one of the first two sessions of class. This two-quarter sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies; it does not meet the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. This two-quarter sequence explores musical works of broad cultural significance in Western civilization. We study pieces not only from the standpoint of musical style but also through the lenses of politics, intellectual history, economics, gender, cultural studies, and so on. Readings are taken both from our music textbook and from the writings of a number of figures such as St. Benedict of Nursia and Martin Luther. In addition to lectures, students discuss important issues in the readings and participate in music listening exercises in smaller sections.

HIST 13001-13002-13003. History of European Civilization I-II-III.

European Civilization is a two-quarter sequence designed to use close readings of primary sources to enrich our understanding of Europeans of the past. As we examine the variety of their experiences, we will often call into question what we mean in the first place by “Europe” and “civilization.” Rather than providing a narrative of high politics, the sequence will emphasize the contested geographic, religious, social, and racial boundaries that have defined and redefined Europe and its people over the centuries. We will read and discuss sources covering the period from the early Middle Ages to the present, from a variety of genres: saga, biography, personal letters, property records, political treatises, memoirs, and government documents, to name only a few. Individual instructors may choose different sources and highlight different aspects of European civilization, but some of the most important readings will be the same in all sections. The two-quarter sequence may also be supplemented by a third quarter, in which students will have the opportunity to explore in greater depth a particular topic in the history of European civilization.

HIST 13100-13200-13300. History of Western Civilization I-II-III.

Available as a three-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter-Spring) or as a two-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter or Winter-Spring). This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. The purpose of this sequence is threefold: (1) to introduce students to the principles of historical thought, (2) to acquaint them with some of the more important epochs in the development of Western civilization since the sixth century BC, and (3) to assist them in discovering connections between the various epochs. The purpose of the course is not to present a general survey of Western history. Instruction consists of intensive investigation of a selection of original documents bearing on a number of separate topics, usually two or three a quarter, occasionally supplemented by the work of a modern historian. The treatment of the selected topics varies from section to section. This sequence is currently offered twice a year. The amount of material covered is the same whether the student enrolls in the Autumn-Winter-Spring sequence or the Summer sequence.

HIST 13500-13600-13700. America in World Civilization I-II-III.

Available as a three-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter-Spring) or as a two-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter or Winter-Spring). This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence uses the American historical experience, set within the context of Western civilization to (1) introduce students to the principles of historical thought, (2) probe the ways political and social theory emerge within specific historical contexts, and (3) explore some of the major issues and trends in American historical development. This sequence is not a general survey of American history.

HIST 13900-14000. Introduction to Russian Civilization I-II.

This two-quarter sequence, which meets the general education requirement in civilization studies, provides an interdisciplinary introduction to Russian civilization. The first quarter covers the ninth century to the 1870s; the second quarter continues on through the post-Soviet period. Working closely with a variety of primary sources—from oral legends to film and music, from political treatises to literary masterpieces—we will track the evolution of Russian civilization over the centuries and through radically different political regimes. Topics to be discussed include the influence of Byzantine, Mongol-Tataric, and Western culture in Russian civilization; forces of change and continuity in political, intellectual and cultural life; the relationship between center and periphery; systems of social and political legitimization; and symbols and practices of collective identity.

HIST 15100-15200-15300-15400. Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia I-II-III-IV.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This is a sequence on the civilizations of China, Japan, and Korea, with emphasis on major transformation in these cultures and societies from the Middle Ages to the present.

HIST 15602-15603-15604. Ancient Empires I-II-III.

This sequence introduces three great empires of the ancient world. Each course in the sequence focuses on one empire, with attention to the similarities and differences among the empires being considered. By exploring the rich legacy of documents and monuments that these empires produced, students are introduced to ways of understanding imperialism and its cultural and societal effects—both on the imperial elites and on those they conquered.

HIST 15702-15703-15704. Semitic Languages Cultures and Civilizations I-II-III.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

HIST 15801. Introduction to the Middle East. 100 Units.

Prior knowledge of the Middle East not required. This course aims to facilitate a general understanding of some key factors that have shaped life in this region, with primary emphasis on modern conditions and their background, and to provide exposure to some of the region's rich cultural diversity. This course can serve as a basis for the further study of the history, politics, and civilizations of the Middle East.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 10101

HIST 16101-16102-16103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I-II-III.

Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence is offered every year. This course introduces the history and cultures of Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean Islands).

HIST 16402. Slavery at the Movies. 100 Units.

This course considers representations of slavery in historical documents, fiction, and in film in order to think critically about the representations and uses of enslavement in popular culture. Comparisons of the historical vision and the cinematic representation of slavery focus on the largely understudied post–World War II commercial film. Special remarks: It is expected that all students will have viewed the film at least once before the first class meeting of the week. Anyone who does not attend the Sunday afternoon screening is responsible for making independent arrangements to view the film.

Instructor(s): J. Saville     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Sunday film screenings.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 16402,LLSO 26815

HIST 16700-16800-16900. Ancient Mediterranean World I-II-III.

Available as a three-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter-Spring) or as a two-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter or Winter-Spring). This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence surveys the social, economic, and political history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), the Roman Republic (509 to 27 BC), and late antiquity (27 BC to the fifth century AD).

HIST 17300-17400-17402-17501-17502-17503. Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization I-II-II-III-IV-III.

This group of courses consists of two three-quarter sequences: HIPS 17300-17400-17501 or 17502, and HIPS 17400-17402-17503 or 17502. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required. Each sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. Each three-quarter sequence focuses on the origins and development of science in the West. Our aim is to trace the evolution of the biological, psychological, natural, and mathematical sciences as they emerge from the cultural and social matrix of their periods and, in turn, affect culture and society.

HIST 18301-18302-18303. Colonizations I-II-III.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This three-quarter sequence approaches the concept of civilization from an emphasis on cross-cultural/societal connection and exchange. We explore the dynamics of conquest, slavery, colonialism, and their reciprocal relationships with concepts such as resistance, freedom, and independence, with an eye toward understanding their interlocking role in the making of the modern world.

HIST 20109. Politics of Culture in African American History. 100 Units.

In this course we will explore historically the political implications of black cultural formations and expressions, focusing on the diverse ways in which culture has been explicitly invoked or deployed to political ends, has served as a means of political mobilization, and has marked African Americans as fit or unfit for citizenship rights. Through this debate, which has been sometimes explicit and at other times sub-rosa, we will probe the meanings and significance attributed to race, culture, and their interrelationship. Among the topics to be addressed in lectures and discussions are the debates on the relation between slave culture and resistance, the contrasting ways black and white performers have engaged the minstrel tradition, the social interpretations of black musical expression, the role to the state in promoting black cultural expression, and culture as a site of resistance.  Each topic will be addressed through lectures and class discussions.

Instructor(s): T. Holt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 30109,LLSO 27601,CRES 20109,CRES 30109

HIST 20402. War and Society in the Graeco-Roman World. 100 Units.

In this course we will study the interplay between warfare and the political, social, and economic structures of the ancient Mediterranean world. We will explore topics such as the motivations for and ideology of armed conflict, the relationship between military organization and civic structure, and the impact of hegemonic and imperial expansion on both the conquerors and the conquered. The course readings will incorporate foundational modern perspectives, but will emphasize ancient sources in translation.

Instructor(s): C. Hawkins     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 30402,CLCV 24406,ANCM 34410,CLAS 34406

HIST 20403. Greek Comedy: Aristophanes. 100 Units.

We will read in Greek Aristophanes' Frogs, a play widely admired as an early instance of clever literary criticism and creative metatheatricality that brings its audience into the underworld and suggests several fantasies of salvation, a play whose production marks the end of the great century of Greek drama. Reading will include translation as well as secondary readings.

Instructor(s): Sarah Nooter     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): GREK 20600 or equivalent
Equivalent Course(s): GREK 22400,GREK 32400,HIST 30403

HIST 20802. Alexander the Great. 100 Units.

This course provides both a survey of the career of Alexander the Great and an introduction to the historiographical traditions (ancient and modern) that shape our understanding of his legacy. We will focus primarily on two clusters of problems. First, we will examine what Alexander’s career can tell us about the dynamics of ancient empires. Second, we will grapple with the interpretative challenges generated by our evidence, which consists largely of literary accounts produced by authors who wrote long after Alexander’s own lifetime and who relied on earlier texts that no longer survive. All sources will be read in translation.

Instructor(s): C. Hawkins     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 30802,CLCV 24506,CLAS 34506

HIST 20901. Archæology for Ancient Historians. 100 Units.

This course is intended to act not as an introduction to Classical archæology but as a methods course illuminating the potential contribution of material cultural evidence to ancient historians while at the same time alerting them to the possible misapplications. Theoretical reflections on the relationship between history and archaeology will be interspersed with specific case studies from the Græco-Roman world.

Instructor(s): J. Hall     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 39800,CLCV 21700,CLAS 31700,ANCM 31700

HIST 21501. Law, Markets, and Society in the Long Nineteenth Century. 100 Units.

Markets are made. Their specific history develops out of the intersecting contingencies of economic, political, and legal concerns. In this course we will investigate the moral, political, and legal arguments over markets, aiming to understand the multiple debates and controversies that marked their historical rise. Major themes will include the kinds of laws that might be needed to construct, or perhaps to constrain, a burgeoning commercial society, the recurrent debates over public finance and state intervention in the economy, and the place of the individual in a society organized around economic principles. Our main geographic focus will be on France and Britain, with occasional excursions elsewhere. Through a close examination of primary and secondary sources, we will therefore seek to grasp the relationships between law and markets, economy and society during the critical years of the long nineteenth century. This upper-level course assumes some basic familiarity with the political history of the period; no prior knowledge of legal or economic history is required, though students should be prepared to take an interpretive approach to legal and economic phenomena. The main goal of the course is to grasp the mutually constitutive relationship between laws and markets, as well as how this relationship can be shaped in different ways by different sorts of actors, institutions, and theoretical currents. At the end of the course, students should develop their own theses on how these pieces fit together, which is to say, students should come away with a sense of the historical embeddedness of legal and economic structures.

Instructor(s): T. Leuchter     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 21701. Byzantine Empire, 330-610. 100 Units.

A lecture course, with limited discussion, of the formation of early Byzantine government, society, and culture. Although a survey of event and changes, including external relations, many of the latest scholarly controversies will also receive scrutiny. There will be some discussion of relevant archaeology and topography. No prerequisite. Readings will include some primary sources in translation and examples of modern scholarly interpretations. Final examination and a short paper.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 31701,CLCV 24306,CLAS 34306

HIST 21702. Byzantine Empire, 610-1025. 100 Units.

A lecture course, with limited discussion, of the principle developments with respect to government, society, and culture in the Middle Byzantine Period. Although a survey of event and changes, including external relations, many of the latest scholarly controversies will also receive scrutiny. No prerequisite. Readings will include some primary sources in translation and examples of modern scholarly interpretations. Final examination and a short paper. Graduate students may register for grade of R (audit) or P (Pass) instead of a letter grade, except for History graduate students taking this as a required course.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 31702,CLCV 24307,CLAS 34307

HIST 22113. Jewish History and Society I: The Archaeology of Israel - History, Society, Politics. 100 Units.

The course will offer a historical and critical perspective on 150 years of archaeology in Israel/Palestine, beginning with the first scientific endeavors of the 19th century and covering British Mandate and pre-state Jewish scholarship, as well as developments in the archaeology of Israel since 1948. I will devote particular attention to the mutual construction of archaeological interpretation and Israeli identity and to the contested role of archaeology in the public sphere both within Israeli society and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The course will conclude with a discussion of the plausibility and possible content of an indigenous post-conflict archaeology in Israel and Palestine, based on 21st century paradigm shifts in archaeological discourse and field work.

Instructor(s): R. Greenberg     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 20001,CRES 20001,NEHC 20401,NEHC 30401,RLST 20604

HIST 22202-22406. Jewish History and Society III-II.

HIST 22203. The Holy Roman Empire, 800-1500. 100 Units.

During the first seven centuries of its existence, the Holy Roman Empire emerged as one of the most politically and culturally heterogeneous states in all of Europe. A vast expanse of central Europe that is today divided among more than a dozen different nations was ruled, at least in theory, by the emperors during the central and late Middle Ages. The purpose of this course is to trace some of the major developments in imperial history between 800 (Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor) and the early sixteenth century. Topics will include the changing nature of imperial authority from the Carolingians to the Habsburgs, the Church’s and the nobility’s establishment of quasi-independent lordships inside imperial territory, papal-imperial relations, and the eastward expansion of the empire.

Instructor(s): J. Lyon     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32203

HIST 22900. The Italian Renaissance. 100 Units.

This course will cover Florence, Rome, and the Italian city-states in the age of plagues and cathedrals, Dante and Machiavelli, Medici and Borgia (1250–1600), with a focus on literature and primary source readings, as well as the rediscovery of lost texts and technologies of the ancient world. We will consider such topics as humanism, patronage, cultural immersion, dynastic and papal politics, corruption, assassination, rivalry, art, music, magic, censorship, religion, education, rare books and manuscripts, science, heresy, reform, and the roots of the Reformation. Writing assignments focus on higher level writing skills and biographical research, with a creative writing component.

Instructor(s): A. Palmer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32900

HIST 23002. Protestant Reformation in Germany. 100 Units.

This course is designed to clarify and test the assumptions underlying the present state of knowledge about the Protestant Reformation. Its method consists of reading extensively in the historiography and reflecting intensively on the issues raised by that reading. So as to maintain a well-defined focus the course is limited largely to the Reformation in Germany. So as to develop a broad perspective the course is not limited to the most recent literature. We will begin with some of the most famous older interpretations (Hegel, Ranke, Engels, Troeltsch, Weber, Febvre). We will then go on to consider the redefinition of the historical agenda since the 1960s and the current state of our knowledge by reading the work of leading contemporary historians of the Reformation (e.g., Bernd Moeller, Thomas Brady, Heiko Oberman, Jean Delumeau, Peter Blickle, Heinz Schilling). I will focus on explaining the readings, but I will also leave room for questions and discussion.

Instructor(s): C. Fasolt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22602

HIST 23003. Urban Europe, 1600-Present. 100 Units.

This course examines the growth, structure, and, on occasion, decline of European towns and cities from the seventeenth century to the present. The focus throughout is on questions directly related to the positioning, form, and function of urban communities and to the efforts of interest groups and policy makers to shape and promote the fortunes of these communities. The course is interdisciplinary in spirit and content, drawing on the contributions of historians, geographers, sociologists, economists, demographers, political scientists, urban planners, and others. There are no prerequisites; the readings and lectures cover whatever needs to be known about theories, methods, and the European context.

Instructor(s): J. Craig     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 33003,GEOG 23003,GEOG 33003

HIST 23200. Twentieth-Century European History. 100 Units.

This lecture course will provide an advanced introduction to European history in the twentieth century. Topics covered will include: (1) the persistence of war from World War I and II to the Cold War, wars of decolonization, and the conflict in former Yugoslavia; (2) the transformations of the relations of state, society, and economy, including the Great Depression and its effects, the rise and fall of the welfare state changes, inflation and monetary crises, as well as the peculiar combination of nationalization and Europeanization; (3) the controversies and confrontations over the remaking of society, including the rearrangement of class and gender relations, the changing place of religious belief, the consequences of postcolonial immigration, and the forging of European-wide consumer identities. The overarching puzzle we face is how we get from an age of empire and a status-driven, but overall pacific, if highly militarized society, at the beginning of the century to the chasm of extreme violence that made Europe between the Urals and the Atlantic into a vast killing field  in mid-century to, at the end of the century, a Europe of interdependent and united, if squabbling nations, that seem to fall apart in discord any minute, but haven’t done so yet; of societies that are at one and the same time remarkably cosmopolitan and haughtily xenophobic; and of economies that have been the more successful the less they have followed a neo-liberal path to economic growth. What do we make of a Europe that has long rolled out of the center of the world and transformed itself into a peaceable kingdom that some compare to a nature park or vast open-air history museum and that for all of that has become rather more attractive than less?

Instructor(s): M. Geyer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 23215,GRMN 33215,HIST 33200

HIST 23300. Emergence of Capitalism in Early Modern Europe. 100 Units.

This course investigates the emergence of capitalism in Europe and the world as a whole between the early sixteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. We discuss the political and cultural as well as the economic, sources of capitalism, and explore Marxist, neoclassical, and cultural approaches. (C)

Instructor(s): W. Sewell     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 23415,HIST 33300,LLSO 23415,PLSC 32815

HIST 23310. Animals in the Middle Ages. 100 Units.

“Animals,” the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once famously observed, “are good to think.” They are also good to eat, ride, look at, hunt, train for battle, make things out of, and keep as companions. This course considers the many ways in which medieval Europeans used and thought about animals: from the horses, hawks, and hounds of the hunt to the sheep, cows, chickens, and pigs of the home, as well as the lambs, doves, and lions of Holy Scripture, the talking foxes and cats of the beast fable, and the unicorns and dragons of saints’ lives, beastiaries, and travelers’ tales. Topics and questions to be addressed include the economic and social importance of animals, the symbolism of animals, animals in law, science, philosophy, and art, and whether animals were believed to have feelings and/or souls.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 33310

HIST 23510. The Arts of Language in the Middle Ages: The Trivium. 100 Units.

Throughout the Middle Ages, formal education began with the study of language: grammar, including the study of literature as well as the practical mastery of the mechanics of language (here, Latin); logic or dialectic, whether narrowly defined as the art of constructing arguments or, more generally, as metaphysics, including the philosophy of mind; and rhetoric, or the art of speaking well, whether to praise or to persuade. In this course, we will be following this medieval curriculum insofar as we are able through some of its primary texts, many only recently translated, so as to come to a better appreciation of the way in which the study of these arts affected the development of medieval European intellectual and artistic culture.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 23902,HIST 33510

HIST 23515. Their Brothers' Rights: Western and Eastern Jews in the Long Nineteenth Century. 100 Units.

The course deals with interventions by “Western” Jewries on behalf of Jewish communities in the “East,” especially imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire, between the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) and the eve of the First World War. The course will follow two axes of interpretation: first, the global conditions established through international relations, focusing on the principle of the balance of power and accompanied by conferences and congresses; second, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, the transformation from intercession by notables to a kind of nongovernmental Jewish diplomacy undertaken by organizations promoting education, welfare, and civil equality.

Instructor(s): D. Diner     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 23510,JWSC 26310,SLAV 23510

HIST 23704. War and Peace. 100 Units.

A close reading of Tolstoy's great novel, with attention to theoretical approaches to be found in the large critical apparatus devoted to the novel.

Instructor(s): W. Nickell     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 22302,CMLT 22301,CMLT 32301,ENGL 28912,ENGL 32302,FNDL 27103,RUSS 32302

HIST 24005. The Burden of History: A Nation and Its Lost Paradise. 100 Units.

What makes it possible for the imagined communities called nations to command the emotional attachments that they do?  This course considers some possible answers to Benedict Anderson’s question on the basis of material from the Balkans. We will examine the transformation of the scenario of paradise, loss, and redemption into a template for a national identity narrative through which South East European nations retell their Ottoman past.  With the help of Žižek’s theory of the subject as constituted by trauma and Kant’s notion of the sublime, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity.

Instructor(s): A. Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SOSL 27300,CMLT 23401,CMLT 33401,HIST 34005,NEHC 20573,NEHC 30573,SOSL 37300

HIST 24112. Early Modern Japanese History. 100 Units.

This course introduces the basic narrative and critical discourses of the history of early modern Japan, roughly from 1500 to 1868. The course examines the emergence of the central power that unified feudal domains and explores processes of social, cultural, and political changes that transformed Japan into a "realm under Heaven." Some scholars consider early modern Japan as the source of an indigenous birth of capitalism, industrialism, and also of Japan’s current economic vitality, while others see a bleak age of feudal oppression and isolation. We will explore both sides of the debate and examine the age of many contradictions.

Instructor(s): N. Toyosawa     Terms Offered: Spring 2015
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 39900,HIST 34112,EALC 19000

HIST 24500. Reading Qing Documents. 100 Units.

Reading and discussion of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historical political documents, including such forms as memorials, decrees, local gazetteers, diplomatic communications, essays, and the like.

Instructor(s): G. Alitto     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 34500,EALC 24500,EALC 34500

HIST 24603-34603. The Objects of East Asian History.

HIST 24607. Chinese Social History, Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Century. 100 Units.

This class provides an overview of major developments in Chinese social history from the high Qing period (roughly the eighteenth century) until very recent times. It focuses on the lives of “ordinary people,” especially in the countryside, where over 80 percent of China’s population lived until roughly 1980, and over 40 percent still live today. Topics include family organization, relations between the generations, and gender roles; property rights, class relations, and their implications for economic activity; the nature of village communities and their relationship to political/legal authority; migration, frontier settlement, and changes in ethnic and national identity; twentieth-century urbanization, consumerism, and changing notions of the individual; and collective protest, violence, and revolution. A secondary theme is more theoretical: what is it possible to know about the lives of people who left few records of their own, and how do we evaluate what are often, inevitably, thinly documented claims? The class format will include a lot of lecture, but mixed with both in-class and online discussion. No background knowledge is required.

Instructor(s): K. Pomeranz     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 24607,EALC 24608

HIST 24803. Histories in Japan. 100 Units.

An examination of the discipline of history as practiced in Japan from ancient times to the modern. Readings in translation of works such as the Kojiki, Okagami, Taiheiki, and others will be used to explore both the Japanese past and the manner of interpretation of that past.

Instructor(s): J. Ketelaar     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 34803,EALC 24803,EALC 34803

HIST 24807. Twentieth-Century China. 100 Units.

This lecture and discussion course surveys twentieth-century China through recurring themes or evolving media. Students should expect to understand key historical turning points during the course of the century, as well as to grapple with these events through a thematic lens. Successful students will move adeptly between the broad narrative and the narrower theme when approaching the readings for discussion section. In spring 2014 the course looked at the century through great trials. Possible future themes include the novel, reform and revolution, human rights, local and national social movements, dissent and expression, gender and the Communist revolution.

Instructor(s): J. Ransmeier     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Due to overlapping themes, HIST 24807 is not open to students who previously took HIST 24306.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24808

HIST 25109. Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. 100 Units.

We will begin by trying to explicate the manner in which science is a rational response to observational facts. This will involve a discussion of inductivism, Popper’s deductivism, Lakatos and Kuhn. After this, we will briefly survey some other important topics in the philosophy of science, including underdetermination, theories of evidence, Bayesianism, the problem of induction, explanation, and laws of nature. (B) (II)

Instructor(s): K. Davey     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 22000,HIST 35109,PHIL 32000

HIST 25311. Medicine and Society in America. 100 Units.

The course provides a social-historical backdrop to central questions in American medicine from the early colonial period to the present day. Topics covered include epidemics in the early colonies; frontier medicine and alternative healers; urbanization, hygiene, and the state; race, empire, and medicine; sexual health and reproductive rights; the politics of addiction; and the rise of biomedicine, genetics, and genomics, among others. Students will gain from this course both an understanding of major trends and transformations in American medicine, as well as a more nuanced feel for present-day debates about healthcare rights and policies in America. Requirements will include short weekly responses to class readings and a final paper of six to eight pages.

Instructor(s): M. Rossi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 25311

HIST 25503. Junior Seminar: My Favorite Readings in the History and Philosophy of Science. 100 Units.

This course introduces some of the most important and influential accounts of science to have been produced in modern times. It provides an opportunity to discover how philosophers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists have grappled with the scientific enterprise, and to assess critically how successful their efforts have been. Authors likely include Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Robert Merton, Steven Shapin, and Bruno Latour.

Instructor(s): R. Richards, A. Winters     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 29800

HIST 25506. Science and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries. 100 Units.

One can distinguish four ways in which science and aesthetics are related during the last three centuries. First, science has been the subject of artistic effort in painting and photography and in poetry and novels (e.g., in Goethe’s poetry or in H. G. Wells’s Island of Doctor Moreau). Second, science has been used to explain aesthetic effects (e.g., Helmholtz’s work on the way painters achieve visual effects or musicians achieve tonal effects). Third, aesthetic means have been used to convey scientific conceptions (e.g., through illustrations in scientific volumes or through aesthetically affective and effective writing). Finally philosophers have stepped back to consider the relationship between scientific knowing and aesthetic comprehension (e.g., Kant and Bas van Fraassen). In this course, we will consider these four modes of relationship. The first part of the quarter will be devoted to Kant, reading carefully his third critique; then we will turn to Goethe and Helmholtz, both feeling the impact of Kant, and to Wells, a student of T. H. Huxley. We then consider more contemporary modes expressive of the relationship, especially the role of illustrations in science and the work of contemporary philosophers like Fraassen.

Instructor(s): R. Richards     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 35506,HIPS 25506,CHSS 35506,PHIL 24301,PHIL 34301

HIST 25510. Sciences of Memory in the Twentieth Century. 100 Units.

This course will examine a series of episodes in the history of the understanding of autobiographical memory, beginning with the emergence of academic psychology, and also psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth century and ending with the "memory wars" of the 1980s and '90s. The course will include an examination of the yoked history of beliefs about individual and "collective" memory: the impact of memory therapies during the First and Second World Wars, the impact of innovations in brain surgery on beliefs about the physiological memory record and the neurophysiology of remembering, and the impact of the rise of forensic psychology on the popular, scientific, and legal understanding of memory.

Instructor(s): A. Winter     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 35505,HIPS 28002,CHSS 31502

HIST 25701. North Africa, Late Antiquity to Islam. 100 Units.

Examination of topics in continuity and change from the third through ninth centuries CE, including changes in Roman, Vandalic, Byzantine, and early Islamic Africa. Topics include the waning of paganism and the respective spread and waning of Christianity, the dynamics of the seventh-century Muslim conquest and Byzantine collapse. Transformation of late antique North Africa into a component of Islamic civilization. Topography and issues of the autochthonous populations will receive some analysis. Most of the required reading will be on reserve, for there is no standard textbook. Readings in translated primary sources as well as the latest modern scholarship. Final examination and ten-page course paper.

Instructor(s): W. Kaegi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 30200,CLCV 20200,CMES 30634,CRES 25701,HIST 35701,NEHC 20634,NEHC 30634

HIST 25704-25804-25904. Islamic History and Society I-II-III.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence surveys the main trends in the political history of the Islamic world, with some attention to economic, social, and intellectual history. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required.

HIST 26214. The Social Memory of "Convivencia": Muslims, Jews, and Christians and Historical Nationalism in Contemporary Spain. 100 Units.

Convivencia is a word that describes the multicultural and social environment created by the existence of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities in medieval Spain. This course aims to examine both this circumstance and its social memory: how and why contemporary narratives have dealt with this historical issue, usually portrayed as a mirror or a precedent for present day situations in which different religious and cultural communities share the same political and social arena. The course is conceived as a dialogue between the past and the present, between the evidence from remote times and the conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and misconceptions that are built upon this evidence. In so doing, the objective is to address a number of pressing questions regarding the uses and abuses of history, its role as forger of identities, communities, or values, and, more particularly, the difficult relations of contemporary Spain with its own past.

Instructor(s): E. Manzano     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Spanish reading proficiency (preferred for some assigned readings) or reading proficiency in Arabic or Hebrew.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 25100,HIST 36214,LACS 35100

HIST 26604. Slavery in South Asia. 100 Units.

This course offers an introduction to historic and contemporary forms of unfree labor in South Asia. We will explore ideas of freedom and slavery in the work of seminal modern thinkers, read about slavery in ancient and medieval South Asia and discuss the convergent histories of slavery in the Americas and caste in British and princely India. How do race, gender, caste and class shape this history? Does this history inform contemporary texts or social practices in South Asia?  Students will gain knowledge of the little-known history and practice of slavery in pre-modern to contemporary South Asia through close reading of primary sources and historical scholarship. At the end of the course, students will be better able to identify silences and dominant voices within primary sources, interpret texts in their social and political contexts and evaluate the differences between historiographical approaches. This course will also encourage students to trace the historic roots of contemporary practices and to find ways to share knowledge acquired in class with the campus or wider community.

Instructor(s): M. Jayanth     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25302,CRES 25302

HIST 26707. Radical Cinema in India: From Decolonization to the Emergency. 100 Units.

What constitutes radicalism in cinema? All too often the expression radical has been reserved for films that come under the rubric of “art”, “parallel” or “third” cinema. Formally these films share certain commonalities with Latin American, Eastern European cinemas and even the various European new waves. Is it possible however to read a radical politics and ethics into films and filmmakers who did not self-consciously describe themselves as such? To what extent does political cinema and extra-cinematic discussions of such films compromise questions of formalism? This course will analyze these and related issues by looking closely at Indian cinema from 1947 to 1977. We will be watching and discussing both “popular” and “art” films to understand the ways in which they have addressed (or not) issues of mass politics, the state, and the people. You do not need a prior background in Indian films or Indian history to take this class but it is absolutely essential that you attend all the screenings and participate in class discussion.

Instructor(s): R. Majumdar     Terms Offered: Spring 2015
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20508,CMST 24106,HIST 36707,SALC 30508

HIST 27013. Disease, Diet, and the Divine: Health and the Body in American Religions. 100 Units.

From 18th-century debates over smallpox inoculation to contemporary evangelical dieting culture, this course explores how religion has shaped human bodies in sickness and health in American history. We will explore some well-known episodes, like the emergence of Christian Science, as well as less-studied moments in the story of American religion and medicine, like the early-20th-century interest in the effect of tuberculosis on Jews. We will investigate the deep medical interests of early Methodists as well as the sometimes fraught relationship between modern medicine and Amish and Mennonite communities. This course will evaluate how religious thought and practice have interacted in the American context in the human pursuit to understand and change the human body and its health. We will read primary and secondary texts about different religious communities that span the history of America from European exploration to the present: from Algonquians to black Muslims, from Pentecostals to Roman Catholics.

Instructor(s): P. Koch     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 21311,HIPS 27013

HIST 27102. Lincoln: Slavery, War, and the Constitution. 100 Units.

This course is a study of Abraham Lincoln’s view of the Constitution, based on close readings of his writings, plus comparisons to judicial responses to Lincoln’s policies.

Instructor(s): D. Hutchinson     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 24711,FNDL 24711

HIST 27206. The Making of the American West. 100 Units.

Reflecting on the closing of the frontier at the end of the nineteenth century, Frederick Jackson Turner described the region as the seedbed of American identity, "the meeting point between savagery and civilization." Speaking to an entirely different era, but lamenting the passage of an age nonetheless, Hunter S. Thompson looked west from a hotel room in Las Vegas to see the high water mark where the wave of 1960s counterculture rebellion finally broke and rolled back. By investigating the "Making of the West," we are talking about more than just a geographical region, we are describing a process of cultural imagination, environmental conquest, and social negotiation. The question of what, if anything, makes the West a distinctive region will remain open throughout the course as we examine the political economy of rural extraction and urban development, the tumultuous arena of race relations, and representations of the West in popular culture.

Instructor(s): T. Dorrance     Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 27412. Race and Twentieth-Century Social Science. 100 Units.

This course explores the role that social-science ideologies and methods have played in shaping our understanding of "race" and racial phenomena in the twentieth century. Beginning with the scientific racism that dominated the late-nineteenth century, we will examine the claims and methods of diverse "scientific" interventions over the first half of the twentieth century that both challenged and confirmed racist thinking, including intelligence testing and blood work during World War I, the work of Franz Boas and his students, the Chicago school of sociology, and state policies addressing the race question in the post–WWII era (including the United Nations' UNESCO reports). Our emphasis throughout will be on how social historical and political forces shaped and were shaped in turn by twentieth-century science.

Instructor(s): T. Holt     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Open to upper-level undergraduates.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 27412,LLSO 21210

HIST 27506. Changing America in the Twentieth Century. 100 Units.

This course explores the regional organization of U.S. society and its economy during the pivotal twentieth century, emphasizing the shifting dynamics that explain the spatial distribution of people, resources, economic activity, human settlement patterns, and mobility. We put special focus on the regional restructuring of industry and services, transportation, city growth, and cultural consumption. Two-day weekend field trip to the Mississippi River required.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course offered odd years.
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 22100,GEOG 32100,HIST 37506

HIST 28000. United States Latinos: Origins and Histories. 100 Units.

An examination of the diverse social, economic, political, and cultural histories of those who are now commonly identified as Latinos in the United States. Particular emphasis will be placed on the formative historical experiences of Mexican Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans, although some consideration will also be given to the histories of other Latino groups, i.e., Cubans, Central Americans, and Dominicans. Topics include cultural and geographic origins and ties; imperialism and colonization; the economics of migration and employment; legal status; work, women, and the family; racism and other forms of discrimination; the politics of national identity; language and popular culture; and the place of Latinos in US society.

Instructor(s): R. Gutiérrez     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 38000,AMER 28001,CRES 28000,GNSE 28202,LACS 28000,LACS 38000

HIST 28002. Citizenship and State Power: A History of American Liberalism. 100 Units.

In the current hyperpolarized political climate, liberalism might seem easy to define as everything conservatives oppose, the differences between the two as distinct as the red and blue states used to mark the geography of presidential elections. The last two decades of historical scholarship have seen a flourishing of articles and archival studies aimed at portraying the postwar conservative revival as more than simply a paranoid and pathological reaction to liberal progress but rather as a distinct and integral part of the American political tradition. So where does that leave liberalism? Our goal in this class is to arrive at a historical understanding of the impact of liberal politics on American culture and economic behavior. To that end, we will examine conflicts over laissez-faire, the corporate construction of American society, the labor question, and the relationship between the state and citizenship. While some of our sources might argue for a liberal consensus in American society, this class is not designed to foster consensus, but rather provide an arena for each of us to articulate our own interpretation of American liberalism.

Instructor(s): T. Dorrance     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 28003. Labor and Capital in American Life. 100 Units.

At its center, the class has the present-minded goal of describing what a labor movement might look like and accomplish in the current economic climate. To accomplish this goal, we will look to the past, less for examples and stories of heroes and villains, but to explore how workers responded to the economic moment of their own time, challenging and reaffirming the values that shaped a diverse range of worker identities. At the same time, we will discuss the history of American capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, examining, in particular, the rise and fall of the industrial economy and the growth of the financial and service sectors. The class will focus on a particular set of moments where a shared set of “common sense” assumptions about political economy provided the framework for debates concerning the politics and culture of work and wealth. Our goal is to examine the fit between political economy, identity, and the social relations that constitute each moment of economic order.

Instructor(s): T. Dorrance     Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 28301. Early American Political Culture, 1600–1820. 100 Units.

This colloquium examines the culture and practice of political participation in early America, with a comparative look at early modern England. It traces the formation of a deferential, nonpartisan politics in the colonies and its replacement in the Revolutionary era with politics that increasingly used political party as a means of democratic participation.

Instructor(s): E. Cook     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 38301,LLSO 20602

HIST 28800. Historical Geography of the United States. 100 Units.

This course examines the spatial dynamics of empire, the frontier, regional development, the social character of settlement patterns, and the evolution of the cultural landscapes of America from pre-European times to 1900. All-day northern Illinois field trip required.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course offered in even years.
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 21900,GEOG 31900,HIST 38800

HIST 28807. Race and American Consumer Culture. 100 Units.

Race was central to the emergence of American consumer culture, and, conversely, consumer culture significantly affected race and the experiences of diverse groups, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and white ethnic groups. This course will explore the juncture between race and American consumer culture from slavery to the late twentieth century. Engaging historical and literary texts, film, advertisements, and music, it will investigate the racialized commodification of groups and cultures; efforts to create a classless, racially exclusive consumer culture; the fragmentation of the mass market; consumer activism; the process of Americanization; and the civil rights movement. This course will pay special attention to the ways consumer culture shaped interracial encounters, various freedom movements, and racial, ethnic, gender, and class identities.

Instructor(s): T. Parker     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 28807,CRES 28807

HIST 28809. North American Borderlands. 100 Units.

This course offers advanced undergraduates a thematic approach to the history of selected borderlands—defined as zones of contested sovereignty—in multiple regions across North America, from the indigenous homelands of Aztlán and Dinétah, to the "middle ground" of the Great Lakes region, and across the 49th parallel into the Pacific Northwest. This course emphasizes borderlands as cultures in motion, examining how different societies interact and learn from each other; the ways in which the categories of class, ethnicity, gender, and race have structured social relations at different points in time; and the production of hybrid identities. Drawing on primary texts from the pre-Columbian period through the twentieth century, this course provides students with a conceptual framework for understanding fundamental themes in North American history as well as an introduction to emerging scholarship on the environment, migration, smuggling, and human trafficking.

Instructor(s): D. Webb     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 28900. Roots of the Modern American City. 100 Units.

This course traces the economic, social, and physical development of the city in North America from pre-European times to the mid-twentieth century. We emphasize evolving regional urban systems, the changing spatial organization of people and land use in urban areas, and the developing distinctiveness of American urban landscapes. All-day Illinois field trip required.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course offered in odd years.
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 26100,ENST 26100,GEOG 36100,HIST 38900

HIST 29000. Latin American Religions, New and Old. 100 Units.

This course will consider select pre-twentieth-century issues, such as the transformations of Christianity in colonial society and the Catholic Church as a state institution. It will emphasize twentieth-century developments: religious rebellions; conversion to evangelical Protestant churches; Afro-diasporan religions; reformist and revolutionary Catholicism; new and New-Age religions.

Instructor(s): D. Borges     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 39000,CRES 29000,CRES 39000,LACS 29000,LACS 39000,RLST 21401,HCHR 39200

HIST 29301. Human Rights I: Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights. 100 Units.

Human rights are claims of justice that hold merely in virtue of our shared humanity. In this course we will explore philosophical theories of this elementary and crucial form of justice. Among topics to be considered are the role that dignity and humanity play in grounding such rights, their relation to political and economic institutions, and the distinction between duties of justice and claims of charity or humanitarian aid. Finally we will consider the application of such theories to concrete, problematic and pressing problems, such as global poverty, torture and genocide. (V) (I)

Instructor(s): B. Laurence     Terms Offered: Spring 2015
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 20100,HMRT 30100,PHIL 21700,PHIL 31600,HIST 39301,INRE 31600,LAWS 41200,MAPH 40000,LLSO 25100

HIST 29302. Human Rights II: History and Theory. 100 Units.

This course is concerned with the theory and the historical evolution of the modern human rights regime. It discusses the emergence of a modern “human rights” culture as a product of the formation and expansion of the system of nation-states and the concurrent rise of value-driven social mobilizations. It proceeds to discuss human rights in two prevailing modalities. First, it explores rights as protection of the body and personhood and the modern, Western notion of individualism. Second, it inquires into rights as they affect groups (e.g., ethnicities and, potentially, transnational corporations) or states.

Instructor(s): M. Geyer and J. Sparrow     Terms Offered: Winter 2015
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 20200,CRES 29302,HIST 39302,HMRT 30200,INRE 31700,LAWS 41301,LLSO 27100

HIST 29303. Human Rights III: Contemporary Issues in Human Rights. 100 Units.

For U.S. students, the study of international human rights is becoming increasingly important, as interest grows regarding questions of justice around the globe. This interdisciplinary course presents a practitioner’s overview of several major contemporary human rights problems as a means to explore the utility of human rights norms and mechanisms, as well as the advocacy roles of civil society organizations, legal and medical professionals, traditional and new media, and social movements. The course may be co-taught by faculty from the Pritzker School of Medicine. Topics may include the prohibition against torture, problems of universalism versus cultural relativism, and the human right to health.

Instructor(s): S. Gzesh     Terms Offered: Autumn 2014
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 20300,HMRT 30300,HIST 39303,INRE 31800,LAWS 78201,LLSO 27200

HIST 29306. Problems in the Study of Gender. 100 Units.

This course will explore interdisciplinary debates in the analysis of gender and feminism in a transnational perspective. Course readings will primarily traverse the twentieth century encompassing Africa, Europe, and the Americas. We will consider how understandings of gender intersect with categories of ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality. Topics to be covered include gendered experiences of: colonial encounters; migration and urbanization; transformations in marriage and family life; medicine, the body, and sexual health; and decolonization and nation-building, religion, and masculinity. Materials will include theoretical and empirical texts, fiction, memoirs, and films.

Instructor(s): N. Atkinson, Autumn; J. Cole, Spring     Terms Offered: Autumn 2013, Spring 2014
Note(s): May be taken in sequence or individually.

HIST 29311. Refugee History and Digital Archives. 100 Units.

This course is an advanced seminar in the history of refugees and digital archives. We will study the development of humanitarian and human rights protections for refugees, stateless people, and other categories of displaced persons. We will discuss the various ways that state and non-state actors have understood and justified their responses to the forced movements of people. In class discussion, we will place this historical experience in dialogue with the needs of contemporary humanitarian efforts and human rights organizations. As part of this work, we will discuss the use of digital archives for research as well as the development, creation, and information architecture of digital archival collections.

Instructor(s): A. Janco     Terms Offered: Not offered in 2014-2015
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 26800,HIST 39311,HMRT 36800

HIST 29312. Human Rights in Russia and Eurasia. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the political economy of human rights in Russia and Eurasia. We will study how international norms have been “imported” by post-Soviet states. How have regional politics and cultures shaped how rights norms are understood and how they are protected in practice? Why do many post-Soviet countries fail to protect the rights of their citizens? Using knowledge of the history, political culture, and social practices of the region, we will work to identify those rights issues with the most potential for positive change and those more likely to remain enduring problems.

Instructor(s): A. Janco     Terms Offered: Not offered in 2014-2015
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 39313,SLAV 26500,SLAV 36500,HMRT 26500

HIST 29511. Civilians and War. 100 Units.

In this course, we will study the history of war and forced migration. We will focus on how particular historical crises have led to the development of human rights protections for people displaced by war. What were these crises and how have they shaped the way we define the rights and status of refugees? How have these conventions been adapted to reflect the challenges of the World Wars, the Cold War, guerrilla warfare, and insurgency? We will study both developments in warfare and strategies for protecting civilians during war.

Instructor(s): A. Janco     Terms Offered: Not offered in 2014-2015
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 36700,HIST 39511,HMRT 26700

HIST 29513. Science Fiction and the History of Empire. 100 Units.

This course is a history of colonialism and empire through the lens of science fiction and speculative fiction (SF), both historical and contemporary. Using a variety of texts, we will trace the development of SF as a genre (or set of genres) and consider how these fictional works from the 16th through the 21st century shed light on the colonial encounter and its legacies. We will in this way use SF as a primary source as well as a critical commentary to understand the structures and ideologies that underpinned, promoted, challenged, or subverted European imperialism. An analysis of these texts and their historical contexts will enable students to understand a variety of factors relevant to the history of global colonialism, including technology, sexuality and gender, race, war and violence, labor, resources and development, modernity, and the state. While we will focus on the encounter between Europe and the so-called non-Western world, other histories of imperialism and colonial practice will also be considered (including American). Sub-genres for investigating this history and its legacies include proto-SF, Scientific Romance and the Gothic, voyages extraordinaires, Last Man and Dying Earth, alien invasion, time travel, future war, automata and robotics, Afrofuturism, lost races, space opera, the pulps, the Golden Age, New Wave, cyberpunk, and World SF, as well as an extended case study of South Africa. While the majority of the readings will be textual, we will also consider cinema, images, comics, material culture, and music.

Instructor(s): E. Fransee     Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 29612. History Colloquium: The Civil Rights Movement. 100 Units.

This course is designed to explore selected topics in the history and historiography of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, with a special focus on the lived experience of movement activists. Our principal objectives will be identifying the roots and causes of the movement, putting it in context of as well as distinguishing it from earlier political mobilizations, and tracing the countervailing social, political, and international forces that shaped its evolution from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. Principal course requirements are active participation in class discussions and an essay, based on primary as well as secondary sources, examining one of the key topics or themes of the course in depth.

Instructor(s): T. Holt     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29648. History Colloquium: Migration and Displacement in Twentieth-Century Europe. 100 Units.

This third-year colloquium will focus on migration and displacement in twentieth-century Europe. Topics will include emigration from Europe in the early twentieth century; displacement and refugees during and after World War I and World War II; and immigration within and to Europe after World War II. All students will write a fifteen-page research paper based on primary sources. Students may choose to participate in a research project on Jewish emigration to the University of Chicago during the Second World War, based on research in the University of Chicago archives.

Instructor(s): T. Zahra     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29649. History Colloquium: World War I, 1914–2014. 100 Units.

In autumn 1914, one hundred years ago, the opening battles of the Great War were fought. They led into a four-year conflagration that is remembered as a seminal catastrophe for Europe. This course sets out to explore key aspects of this war. (1) The memory work of the last one hundred years has produced a uniquely dense record of the experience of war both at the battle front and at the home front. For budding historians this is a matchless opportunity to work with sources. (2) It is also a war that is often described as both a “total” and a “global” war, but what this entails is open to debate. For the more conceptually inclined young historian this is an opportunity to prove their theoretical mettle. (3) This war that ended peace and ushered in an "Age of Extremes" raises crucial questions about the politics of war and peace. It, thus, should be of interest for all those who consider history the school for the grand political decisions about war and peace. (4) Last but not least, World War I has been the source for a huge outpouring of memorial testimony all the way into the present. In fact, some of this memorial work will just have unfolded as we begin our class. Hence, it is an opportunity to reflect on the nature of memory and the emotional impact of grief in twentieth-century European history.

Instructor(s): M. Geyer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29650. History Colloquium: Ending Slavery—Transatlantic Perspectives. 100 Units.

This seminar explores the historical processes by which slavery was proclaimed abolished by various national, imperial, and colonial decrees between the age of democratic revolutions (1770s–1820) through World War I. Background readings, historical texts, and visual documents have been selected in order to take advantage of the increasingly similar questions about slavery’s ending that have emerged in the historical literatures of many different countries. The course therefore takes advantage of growing interdisciplinary and cross-national scholarly research about slavery and emancipations in order to compare and contrast emancipatory processes in regions of the Caribbean (especially St. Domingue/Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Trinidad), North America (especially the United States), Brazil, and West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Senegal).

Instructor(s): J. Saville     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29651. History Colloquium: Writing Historical Fiction. 100 Units.

“History,” as Isidore of Seville put it in his Etymologies, “is a narration of things done, through which those things which were done in the past are discerned. In Greek, it is called historia, apo tou istorein, that is "to see," or "to learn by inquiring." For among the ancients no one would write history unless he had been present and had seen those things which ought to be written down. But what if you weren’t there to see? The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the practice of historical research as an exercise in imagining what it was like to “see” the events of the past as if one were present and to narrate them so that others might “see.” We will consider problems of plot, character, setting, and style, as well as practice finding and interpreting the textual, architectural, geographical, and material sources at our disposal for writing “realistic” accounts of “things done.”

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29653. History Colloquium: Early Modern Britain. 100 Units.

This course looks at British history in the “long seventeenth century," ranging from the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558 to the end of the Stuart dynasty in 1714. The period was one of upheaval, extraordinary both in itself and in its lasting consequences. The country saw protracted civil conflict, a king put on trial and executed, and (arguably) two revolutions. Its culture was distinguished by figures such as Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, Locke, and Purcell. And it created the origins of a world empire, as well as pursuing radical developments in economics, politics, and experimental science. We shall explore aspects of this period, using selected primary and secondary sources to introduce the history and historiography of early modern English culture.

Instructor(s): A. Johns     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29654. Colloquium: Ibero–Ibero American History. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): M. Tenorio     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): History majors must take a History colloquium in their third year.

HIST 29700. Readings in History. 100 Units.

Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and the History undergraduate advisor.

HIST 29801-29802. BA Essay Seminar 1; BA Essay Seminar 2.

History majors are required to take HIST 29801-29802. All third-year history majors in residence in Chicago take BA Essay Seminar 1 in Spring Quarter. Those who are out of residence take the seminar in Autumn Quarter of their fourth year.